Maybury XMAS

 This year is on a roll. Unusually warm temperatures continue! So when the sun peeked out today on Christmas day, I decided to do a quick POTA activation of K-1518 [ Maybury State Park]. I go into my garage and load up the radio and antenna on to my motorcycle. After gearing up and trying to roll the motorcycle out of the garage, notice it is very sluggish and hard to do. Sure enough, the front tire had deflated. I checked the tire for any obvious punctures or foreign objects and do not find any. So, I pull my compressor out and start it to get the tire reinflated. I notice that the compressor never kicks out. Eventually I find that there is a big gash on the high pressure hose causing the tank never to fill up. Determined to make it to the park, I finally pull out the emergency inflator in my car and get the tire inflated. 

After a quick ride through crisp, cold afternoon, I arrived at the park and found it to be pretty active. A lot of people had the idea to enjoy the outdoors on this warm day. I manage to find a secluded spot and set up for activation. Since this was going to be a quick one, I decided to set it up on the motorcycle itself.

Motorcycle XMAS activation of K-1518

The bands seemed to be good. But after trying about 10 minutes of calling CQ on 40m, I am getting no response. POTA also indicates no other activators on 40m. So I made the decision to go to better fishing grounds on 20m. As usual, 20m did not disappoint and I had a successful activation within 15 minutes. I then lingered on a little while more to grab a few contacts on 30m. I was surprised that there were quite a few activators and hunters active on X-mas day!